


Tattoos With Better Stories

by Dog_Bearing_Gifts



Series: Sheepdogs [3]
Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Klaus Hargreeves Deserves Better, Klaus Hargreeves Needs A Hug, Klaus Hargreeves Needs Help, Klaus knows more than he should, Knitting, Not sure how this fits into the timeline, Other, PTSD, Vets being wholesome, Vets recognizing Klaus, Vietnam War, but it can, or his picture anyway, outsider pov
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-13
Updated: 2019-04-13
Packaged: 2020-01-12 10:57:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,790
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18445148
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dog_Bearing_Gifts/pseuds/Dog_Bearing_Gifts
Summary: Klaus meets a couple of Vietnam vets for a knitting lesson.





	Tattoos With Better Stories

Jim didn’t know what to make of the unnamed soldier’s expression. 

It wasn’t a whole smile, but it was near enough to one for Jim to wonder what might lurk behind it. Such a look wasn’t unexpected of a soldier in an active war zone, but there was something more about it, some strange contentment that kept it from sinking into despair. Not for the first time, Jim found himself searching the faces of the other men in his unit for any clue, no matter how small, that might force the facts in his head to fall into their proper places and form a picture clearer than the one before him. But no matter how long he looked, no matter how much the pit in his stomach urged him to look elsewhere, his gaze drifted back, again and again, to David Katz.

The quality of the photograph was par for the course, for its day—a middling caliber that was better than the worst and disappointing when placed alongside the best. Had it been a little less grainy, Jim was certain they’d have been able to make out the barest outlines of the soldier’s tattoos, distinguish a few features that might have separated the soldier in the photo from the veteran they knew. A little grainier, and the soldier would have been only somewhat clearer than most images of Bigfoot or the Loch Ness Monster, his resemblance to Klaus dismissed just as easily. 

Richard took a long pull from his soda, lowered it, and spoke for the first time in a good while. 

“What the _hell_?” 

* * *

_**Earlier** _

“Okay, so first you need to cast on a few stitches.” 

“Cast on.” 

“Right. What you’re gonna do is you’re gonna make a slipknot and put that over the needle.” 

“Which needle?” 

“Doesn’t matter.” 

Klaus looked down at the two identical knitting needles in his lap. “Oh. Right.” He formed the knot easily enough and slipped it over one needle, holding it upright. “Now what?” 

“Now you need to make the first stitch.” 

From all Richard had relayed of his encounter with Klaus the night before, he’d never intended to give the younger man a personal knitting lesson. Plans to meet up with him at the library, to pull him into the circle and let him absorb suggestions and tricks from a group eager to teach had taken a blow when Klaus had called earlier that morning.  _“Said he couldn’t make it,”_ Richard had told Jim on their way to the shop. _“Went on about how he’d tried to knit and couldn’t do it, so he couldn’t come, didn’t want to slow us down.”_

He’d also said Klaus had sounded as if he’d hoped to leave a message rather than speak to the person he’d called, but that was neither here nor there. 

“You’ll take one end of the yarn like this.” Richard lifted his own yarn to demonstrate. “And then lay it over top the rest to make a loop.” 

Klaus had to look back at the example once or twice, but he replicated it without trouble. 

“Now you’ll just slide the loop onto the same needle as the slipknot.” 

Jim glanced toward the cash register. Aimee shot him a smile before pretending to straighten an immaculate display of crochet hooks. Despite her age, she was an old hand around the shop, having been hired on the year before their knitting group outgrew the small meeting room and moved to the library. She still dropped by whenever night classes aligned to keep Thursdays free, bringing along her latest project and a story or two about her dog. 

Klaus tried lifting the loop and sliding it over the needle, as Richard demonstrated, but he hadn’t twisted it correctly and the loop disintegrated and he had to form it again. After a moment of frustration, he managed to slide his new loop down alongside the knot. 

“Great. Now you’ll just do that another eighteen times.” 

Klaus let out a puff of air that wasn’t quite a sigh, but might have been on its way to one. With care, he formed another loop, lifted it gingerly, and placed it on the needle. Richard nodded approval, and Jim’s gaze drifted back to the tattoo on Klaus’ bicep, to the words _Sky Soldiers_ printed above the skull emblem. There were more letters inked in tiny font above, but Klaus’ sleeve kept getting in the way and they were too small for Jim to read from where he sat. 

Like the olive drab vest he wore, like the dog tags dangling against his shirt, the tattoo was just familiar enough to poke at memories ranging from bittersweet to unpalatable. There were a few sweet ones, sure, but war and time had a way of working in concert to change the flavor of those. Perhaps the words meant something different to Klaus, perhaps there was another reason he had chosen to have them inscribed on his skin, but to see it on a man so young sent a dozen questions bubbling to his mind, each more uncomfortable than the last. 

He looked to Richard, but if the man shared his misgivings, he didn’t show it. Jim traded a look with his friend, then spoke. 

“So Klaus. You from the city?” 

Klaus kept his attention on the next stitch he cast on. “Yeah, pretty much. I mean, I’ve always lived here, so I guess that’s where I’m from.” 

Jim had heard less conclusive answers. “So no military family for you.” 

He wasn’t expecting a laugh, let alone one with such a bitter edge. “Not like that, no.” 

No confusion crossed Richard’s face, but he did toss Jim a quick glance. _Talk later_ , it said. Of Klaus, Richard asked: “So what made you decide to enlist?” 

Klaus hesitated, and that hesitation went on a little too long for Jim to believe he was simply concentrating on his knitting. “Just kinda….got thrown into it, I guess.” 

Jim nodded slowly. He’d heard that sentiment before, expressed a dozen different ways—from men who were drafted. Those who enlisted had longer stories, some inspiring and some less so, but they had _stories_. Reasons. Ideals that were confirmed and challenged, shattered and tested. There were exceptions, of course, but when there hadn’t been a draft in forty-six years, stories and reasons usually replaced uncertainty and bewilderment. 

He looked to Richard, trying to guess whether he should ask the kid where he’d served or leave that to his friend, but Klaus lifted his cast-on stitches for inspection. “Got it!” 

“Looks good,” Richard said, and Klaus smiled at the approval. “Now you’ll take your yarn like this….” 

He threaded the yarn around and between his fingers, and Klaus did the same, mimicking as Richard lifted his second needle and slid it into the first stitch. His fingers slipped a bit, missed the yarn the first couple times, but he managed. That smile resurfaced when Richard nodded encouragement. 

Jim knew better than to interrupt a novice knitter in the midst of his first uncertain stitches, so he cast about for something, some small and mundane task that might distance him from the questions tapping him on the shoulder. A glance at his watch told him it was a little late for one meal, a little early for the next—as good a time as any for a snack. 

“I’m gonna head down to the coffee shop on the corner,” he said, stretching. “You guys want anything?” 

“Ooh! They still have those breakfast sandwiches, with the sausage and egg on a biscuit with all that melty cheese?” 

“I’m sure they do.” Jim had expected a little more hesitation from Klaus, but the younger man’s enthusiasm brought a smile. “You want anything, Rich?” 

“Just coffee.” 

Jim stood, but before he’d gotten completely to his feet, a familiar glint of steel against Klaus’ shirt caught his eye. The letter K was up where the surname belonged, but that only proved this Klaus wasn’t a Hargreeves, so he read further. 

_What the_ hell? 

* * *

For a long moment, Richard’s words hung in a silence filled by low chatter and Tom Petty’s voice filtering through the speakers: _Somewhere, somehow, somebody must’ve kicked you around some…_

“You heard what he said.” 

Jim nodded. He’d found Richard and Klaus mid-conversation, but he’d caught enough to stop in his tracks and listen. “Maybe he’s just read more books than most.” 

“But why Vietnam?” 

“Could just like military history.” 

Richard shook his head at the photo. “World War Two’s the one everybody wants to learn about. Vietnam’s the one they want to forget.” 

After a halfhearted search for a counterpoint, Jim gave up. “Was he…” 

Richard met his gaze. 

“From the sound of it, he knows a lot about what the 173rd was up to. He talk about anything else? Overall strategies, basic timeline, any other shit that makes it into those books?” 

“Not much.” He paused in thought. “Actually… I’d have to check the dates, but I don’t think he brought up anything outside of ‘68 or ‘69.” 

Jim took another swig of beer, hoping it would quell his unease. Most amateur historian types liked to study everything, and they’d talk your ear off about anything that occurred within their eras of interest. A self-described WWII buff had spoken about D-Day, the myriad faults in Hitler’s strategies, the American and English home fronts, and scientific advances courtesy of wartime technology. Not all historians were like that; some had a narrower range. But when a particular era sparked their interest, many of those who made research a hobby became intellectual magpies, snatching up every halfway interesting fact for their ever-growing collections. 

“How the hell’d Vietnam come up, anyway?” 

“He asked where I’d served.” 

Klaus should have fielded the question first. He was the mystery, after all, the one who had walked into a room full of strangers to sob over a man fifty years gone. Even if he didn’t care to discuss what he remembered, he should have at least mentioned where he’d been. “He say where _he_ served?” 

“Never got to that, no. But he talked an awful lot about Vietnam.” 

Jim lapsed into silence again. What he’d seen of that talk, of the look Klaus had worn as he spoke, was enough to make him want to down the rest of his beer, grab another, and head out on the town long enough to put Klaus and the unnamed soldier and everything in between out of his mind. Researchers, amateur historians, history buffs—whatever you wanted to call them, most of them bore a certain expression when their favorite era surfaced in conversation. Their eyes lit up, their faces softened as if in preparation to smile. Some talked with voices pitched higher in excitement; some talked with their hands as well. It had repulsed Jim at first, seeing them discuss the Second World War as if a conflict that had left blood and bodies strewn across a ruined landscape was the plot of a popular film they longed to see again. It wasn’t _his_ war, but it was still a war. Even after reminding himself that what they knew of it was cold facts on a page, old posters and stories collected years after surrenders were made and victories declared, he couldn’t say their enthusiasm set him at ease. 

When Klaus spoke of Vietnam, of battles fought years before his time and a war ended decades before his birth, there was no light in his eyes. No eagerness, no sharpened interest, no horror or shock. He responded to Richard’s stories with somber nods and words, but not surprise. He’d shared no anecdotes of his own; any facts he’d named had been in the form of questions—were you here, were you there, did you see this go down or were you wrapped up in a different shitshow—but Jim had seen the look in his eyes, heard the subtle catch in his voice before. It was a question, a plea for recognition. 

_You’ve been to hell. Did you see what I saw? Do what I did?_

“You see his forearm?” 

Richard’s voice, quiet though it was, gave Jim a start, but it faded quickly. “Academy kids weren’t the only ones to get those tattoos.” 

Richard gave a slow nod, eyes on the photo. “Even if he _is_ that Klaus, it doesn’t explain how he got the tags.” 

_Katz, David_. Jim saw the dog tags in his mind’s eye, as sharp and clear as if they sat before him, the name pressed into the metal and his memory. The man himself stood in the photo beside Klaus’ doppelgänger. 

“Might explain how he knew Katz, if he can talk to the dead.” 

“Doesn’t explain anything else.” 

Jim said nothing. Something had happened to Klaus—anyone who looked more than a second could see that. But a longer gaze and a while spent listening told a story, one set in a faraway jungle and filled with blood and the chatter of gunfire and awful lights blazing through the darkness—one Klaus was too young to know. One he heard with the solemn quiet of a man who had witnessed it. 

_Scars are just tattoos with better stories_. Jim wasn’t sure where he’d first heard that or how much stock he put in it, but it had stuck. But when those scars weren’t the kind you could show off to a retired Marine over a few drinks, when they were the sort that appeared only as ripples in a pond, there was no narrative. Only a jumble of events and details—a sobbing man and things he shouldn’t have known, tattoos with significance that ought to escape him—strung together in a manner that might have made sense in a fever dream, but nowhere else. 

“Could be a scam,” Jim said. To his relief, Richard shook his head almost immediately. 

“Tats are expensive.” 

“Research is free.” 

“You don’t learn what he learned without reading a shit-ton of books and old documents.” He took another sip. “Too much investment for too little payoff.” 

A similar thought had planted itself in Jim’s mind, but hearing it echoed allowed it to take root through the silence that followed. “He never asked for anything.” 

Richard looked to him; Jim saw him out the corner of his eye as he regarded the photo again. 

“Never asked for a goddamn thing. Not even help.”  

Richard nodded slowly, somberly, and Jim shut his eyes. All those disparate elements swirling around him, all those impossibilities played as fact, and that was what kept Jim from dismissing it all as a sick hoax played for profit. If there was profit to be gained, Klaus didn’t seek it. He only sought to carry what he’d brought back with him, even as the burden crushed him beneath its weight. 

The two of them stood in silence as the music played. 

“Never did track down everyone in his unit,” Richard said after a long minute. 

Jim nodded. The war had taken some and spared others, but those it spared weren’t shielded from death by other means. Others could have lived, but with their whereabouts unknown, they were no more able to name the soldier who appeared in their photo. 

“Got any other leads?” Jim asked. 

Richard drew a long breath. “There’s one guy. Tried contacting him a couple times, wound up getting put in touch with a friend of a friend. That trail might lead to a dead end for all I know….but it might lead somewhere.” 

Jim looked to the unnamed soldier again. All those years between the taking of the photo and Klaus traipsing into the bar, all those years spent trying to connect the man to a name, had culminated in a morning of knitting and a conversation that made no sense and too much sense. 

This lead, this man from Katz’s unit—as Richard said, it could be yet another dead end in a long string of dead ends. But if it wasn’t, if they could speak to a man who had served alongside the unnamed soldier, had talked with him and eaten with him and exchanged a hundred jokes with him that would have drawn gasps and looks of horror from anyone who didn’t spend their days marching from one battlefield to the next….

The thought brought a mixture of anticipation and apprehension, and Jim wasn’t sure if the two could be separated. 

“And if it doesn’t?” 

Richard regarded the photo again, and Jim couldn’t say whether his gaze went out to the unnamed soldier or to Katz. Maybe it had settled on the both of them.  

“Then I guess we’re back to square one.” 

**Author's Note:**

> If you're curious, the song referenced is "Refugee" by Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers.


End file.
